In a typical rail transportation application, two or more locomotives may be used to pull a train to provide improved tractive effort and train handling capabilities. Modern locomotives commonly use sophisticated adhesion control systems, especially for relatively low speed, high tractive effort drag services. Such adhesion control systems typically require a highly accurate measurement of locomotive ground speed to control locomotive tractive efforts, such as wheel creep limit control. A ground speed of a rail locomotive is commonly derived from a wheel speed measurement measured by a speed sensor associated with a traction motor or axle on the locomotive. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,758,087 describes a method for measuring a locomotive speed based on a sensed axle (and corresponding wheel) speed by intermittently reducing tractive effort on one of the axles so that the creep of the axle is reduced to a nominal amount. Other speed measurement techniques may include radar sensed ground speed or GPS derived ground speed.